Ease of ordering is key here, and a guest checkout option helps this, as well as avoiding the risk of abandonment normally associated with compulsory registration, a common problem on B2B ecommerce sites.

Good post. Hope you could provide more details and some analysis.
However it's a good point about design and functionality, is it functionality over design or they can do both right? I personally prefer Square, great design, clear CTA and very informative.

(2) - Product Videos - we create product videos for every product we sell. They are used to train our sales force, used to sell to the retailer and then the retailer uses on their site to sell to the consumer

The video is prominent on the page and where the 'buy' button would be there is a 'find a retailer'

Other important features that we offer the trade that is not visible via the consumer view of the site are:
- Notify me when product is back in stock
-Quick order page (list products by code or desc) with live stock levels
-CSV Order upload
-data feed to e-commerce sites, so they can use our content
- my account - see outstanding orders, invoices, recreate orders etc

over 2 years ago

Simon Turner

Great to see a post focusing on B2B. Would be really interesting to see something similar on great examples of B2B social media campaigns as well in the future.

In terms of an interesting UK B2B site take a look at http://www.clothes2order.com (disclaimer I do work for them!) but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts as we've spent a lot of time developing and constantly improving an easy to use online B2B personalisation process. We've found that by leveraging a more traditionally B2C approach you can achieve strong B2B performance.

over 2 years ago

Maliwan Savage, Digital Product Manager at RS ComponentsEnterprise

I'm from RS Components and worked on the very page you featured, Graham. Just wanted to say thank you for featuring us and ask if you have any further analysis about the effectiveness of our site?

It would be interesting to see you review BtoB sites for businesses that have much longer buying cycles, like telecomms, office space, large computing, scientific etc - where people aren't necessarily buying online but can schedule a call or meeting and the like.

Great article! I would like to see more about B2B. For example a new website that combines e-commerce with social networking is http://www.tradescraper.com

over 2 years ago

Peter Boazman

Thanks for this review
An additional point that I see is key to B2B site success:-

The use of a Category Management approach to influence the order that the product searches are laid out on the results page. Offering a bundle pack at the top of this results page , for example, can often give the customer the best value whilst returning the highest cash margin to the company. Putting a low margin 'repeat purchase product in this results page 'Hot Spot' just because the database system delivers it that way, is not a good investment.

over 2 years ago

Pete Fairburn, Managing Director at morphsites

Another great roundup here Graham, thanks!

Also delighted to see our work on www.blake-envelopes.com featured here - we continue to work hard on this site and our team and the customer is very pleased with the results. Thanks for selecting us.

its is really an good artical on the B 2 B ecommerce website by graham charltan

over 2 years ago

Dominic Goode

Thanks for the article Graham.

I'm trying to improve conversions on my site http://www.harconsupplies.com so find these round-up articles really useful as we are currently doing a lot of split testing. If anyone has any feedback on my site, I'd appreciate it.

over 2 years ago

Pete Fairburn, Managing Director at morphsites

@Dominic - happy to have a look in more detail at your site if you want to drop us a line - hello@morphsites.com

I'm finding that the 'simple' ecommerce platforms (such as Shopify) are making the whole ecommerce experience better and better, my site http://www.championworkwear.co.uk/ is built on Shopify and it was dead easy to make the experience good first time around. However, it does not let you customise the experience like on these websites above.

almost 2 years ago

Dev Farmah, Marketing / Sales at Adam Sinclair Ltd

Have any of these sites intergrated social media pages to benefit trade customers i.e. Twitter / upcoming Product feed?

over 1 year ago

KARTHIKEYAN KARUPPIAH, Managing Director at DIAFREE NATURAL HERBS

Svasam group is evolving with retail e-commerce store builder http://www.ecbilla.com for global customers and Global b2b eCommerce store creator for b2b business is on pipeline. This will be the best e-commerce platforms for all business and services to create themselves and or with thier support instantly.

11 months ago

Vartika Gupta, Content Marketer at Bizongo

Great article. But there is no Indian representation. Would love to see you doing a segment for it as well..

You should look at the Indian scenario, it is catching up pretty well. The market estimated for B2B in India alone is $700 billion by 2020!
A lot of startups are entering this scene. Even the Government is taking measures to encourage and motivate businesses to come online.
For instance, check out this website- www.bizongo.in

5 months ago

Vijay S, Supply Chain Consultant at Buildmatic

Graham, thanks for the insightful article. There is very little focus on the European or asian market in the post - hope another post follows soon. In the Indian market (where we are located), you could have a look at www.indiamart.com which is focused on connecting buyers and sellers. You could also have a look at www.buildmatic.in which is connecting construction industry developers and contractors to manufacturing companies through technology and project management services. However, the key to a successful B2B company will be integrating the supply chain of the manufacturing company to ensure inventory status is updated on the portal. Cheers.

3 months ago

Peter Vasquez, President at Industrial Man Lifts

This is a very good list that you have put together. With our new design that is to be launched next year at www.industrialmanlifts.com we hope to make your list in the future..

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